Biomarkers play a critical role in cancer diagnosis and treatment. Serum antibodies represent an important class of biomarkers with many advantageous features such as good stability, accessibility in biofluids, and easy detection. There has been extensive research on identifying changes in antibody levels to protein antigens; however, analysis of antibodies that binding carbohydrate antigens have been largely underutilized. Our carbohydrate microarray is well-suited to monitor the repertoire of anti-glycan antibodies in human serum and to study changes in their levels in response to disease or treatment of disease. The high-throughput approach can be used to identify new single biomarkers or to identify combinations of changes or profiles that are useful as biomarkers. Over the last few years, we have developed and validated a carbohydrate microarray assay for measuring antibody levels in human serum. We are now applying this technology in a variety of areas. In collaboration with Dr. Schlom and colleagues, we have been using the array to evaluate immune responses to the PSA-TRICOM prostate cancer vaccine (PROSTVAC-VF). We have found the pre-vaccination IgM antibody levels to blood group A trisaccharide correlate with survival on PROSTVAC-VF. In addition, we have found that antibody response to the Forssman antigen correlate with overall survival. Both correlations are consistent in two independent patient groups encompassing over 100 patients. These are promising new biomarkers for determining which patients should receive PROSTVAC-VF and which patients on PROSTVAC-VF are having a favorable immune response. Finally, in collaboration with Elizabeth Jaffee, we have profiled immune responses induced by GVAX Pancreas whole cell vaccine. Relevant cancer sites: Prostate Cancer. Relevant Research Areas: Urologic Disease, Biological Response Modifiers, Vaccine Development.